


pioneers

by colourmayfade



Category: Lost
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:17:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colourmayfade/pseuds/colourmayfade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post series finale. Hurley and Ben on the island. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>Hugo learns. It takes a little longer than Ben would have liked, but he does.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	pioneers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [published on livejournal](http://colourmayfade.livejournal.com/113843.html) for the lost_squee prompt "boss and soft" as part of some luau!
> 
> Bringing it over because of a request on tumblr!

Hugo learns. It takes a little longer than Ben would have liked, but he does.

They see Desmond off with nothing but a bag of fruit and a few water-bottles. Hurley sits on the shore long after the boat has disappeared on the horizon, eyes squeezed together in concentration, fingers curled into fists punched in the sand. That night the jungle moans and muffles, they sit by the fire watching embers flicker up and out; Hurley whispers, "do you think I got him home safe?" and Ben's head snaps up, "if he followed the coordinates I gave him…", says "I don't know".

In the beginning they spend some time with Rose and Bernard, though Ben stays uneasy, spine straight, posture rigid. They sit by the fire, there's always a fire; Hurley says, "it's delicious," and "can you teach me to make this?" Rose chuckles, Ben rolls his eyes. "I'll be in the barracks if you need me," and once he's gone, Bernard asks:  _how can you stand that guy?_  So he answers, "there's no one else".

There's no one else, so they fix two houses themselves. Hurley turns out to be surprisingly talented with a hammer while Ben figures out how to get the power back on. They sit on the porch, watch dusk fall from the sky. "It's like a ghost town," Hurley says and Ben just stares straight ahead.

Footprints wash in the mud and every tree looks the same.  _You can't track worth a damn_ , Sawyer would say. They're not sure he'll ever learn, but they keep trying, "you can't protect the island if you don't know it," Ben lectures him and one day he finds he knows, each trail, each turn, each crack.

Ben stops by the house every day, pulls the curtain aside and watches a while. When Ben takes him down to the Orchid, says "this is how you'll leave the island," Hurley purses his lips and takes a look around. "Well?" Ben asks, "aren't you going to say anything?"

Hugo shrugs. "Dude, has this been here the whole time?" followed by "… Is that a donkey wheel?" and Ben has to shake his head.  _You have to push it_ , he censures.

He does. And only for ten seconds, sitting there, in the middle of the wide open desert, does he think of never going back.

A promise is a promise, though, so he finds them. Runaways and criminals and heartbroken, sickly people who never really had a chance.

Going back is a little trickier. He sits on a boat for days and days without end, just him and this nervous-looking guy who's playing captain for change. "How can I drive if I don't know where we're going?" he asks angrily, and Hurley shrugs. "It'll be fine, dude," he says and stares at the ocean until the waves build and throw them around, the ocean swallows them in and spits them out on the island again.

And they come, of course.  _It works_. Ben tells him he ought to move somewhere secluded, that he doesn't belong with these people, but Hurley stays. Years go by like weekendless weeks, there's always something to do, someone to take care of.

There are periods when Ben disappears, out on walks to God knows where. It's okay, Hurley figures. Sometimes he takes a few days off, too. Goes to that place where the grass starts to grow just beside the shore, puts flowers in graves and waits for someone to visit him. They stop coming eventually, Michael and Eko and Rousseau, one by one they all move on.

Ben still stares out the window, curtains slightly pushed aside. "I don't know how you can believe in every one of them," but Hurley just kind of ignores that sort of topic. Every time there's a new group, Ben chooses someone to pick on. "That woman, really, Hugo?" and he just smiles in response. "That's Jen. She used to work at a morgue and she's great at videogames."

Ben's skin crinkles and folds, becomes rough like sandpaper, and Hurley stays exactly the same. There are the ones who stay. The two of them, but also women who were sick and now are not, men who would have struggled and burned in a prison somewhere. There are the ones who leave, when the island is done them and they are done with the island. The second part is important too, Hurley decides.

There are some bad choices in between, he admits. Ben screams, "you are too soft on them!" and Hurley whispers, "you are too hard." A man decides to exploit the island for money, Ben's hair is already white and he's becoming even more prickly with age. A riot breaks out amongst his people and it doesn't end well. Hurley buries the man with the bodies of everyone who died in the plane crash decades before. When he comes home, he finds Ben sitting there, in his couch, and his hands tremble, his throat dries. "You don't go behind my back. Ever again," he says.

Ben starts to cough, soon after that. He walks with the help of a cane, and then he doesn't walk at all.

It begins to rain outside and Ben watches with a smile on his face. "This island," he chuckles, and Hurley raises a brow. "How did you manage to bring so many people here?" Ben asks, for the first time.

Hurley smiles. "I asked." Ben laughs, says  _of course_. He closes his eyes, tiredly.

"Who's gonna be too hard on them now?" and Hurley's voice comes out like a whine, his hand wraps around Ben's wrist.

Ben opens his eyes again, head rolling slowly to the side. "You will, Hugo," he tells him. "Whenever you need to be."

Almost everyone shows up to the burial, deep inside the island, and it still storms. Hurley goes back home, stares at the yellow walls and wooden floors, the curtains still slightly pushed aside. He waits for a visit, but it never comes. Funny, he wouldn't have thought Ben would be one to move on straight away.

Now there's just him. 


End file.
